After having car dreams all night long yesterday after 3 test drives, i
wanted to go back to the tata showroom to show my wife the palio (since
it was cheaper than the rest I had test driven). I had bought my
earlier maruti 800 at bimal motors indiranagar. Just before I left i
called bimal on whether i can have a test drive of the swift diesel VDi
and they said i can. so i changed my mind and took my wife along. On
the way i stopped over to the getz showroom and she had a look at
santro and getz that i had test driven earlier yesterday. since the
executive was taking too much time, i told him i ll be back and i went
ahead to bimal.
Knowing the showroom well, the moment I went in, i was offered a test
drive and the keys to the VDi were in my hand. It was an ozone blue
colour car, pretty nice looking and a unique colour in the market as of
today. Put my wife in the back seat, executive in the left seat in
front, ane me on the driver seat! Jet Set Go!
Started car. No noise. Super silent. Cross checked twice, was sure that
the car was on.Had to do some twists and turns on reverse to take the
car out, but the super power steering was only more than eager to
respond to me. It was in this same forum i had once commented that the
power steering felt too puny for me. Somehow that feeling was not so
this time. The executive (a lady
)
was feeling hot (a pun there) and she wanted to put on the a/c. so the
a/c was on level 2. now for the route. from Bimal, one long straight
road (same as the getz drive earlier) all the way on the flyover, down
the ramp, a super sprint on ring road, a u-turn, back on flyover down
again stop and go traffic and one final u-turn.
I must mention that maruti has done a wonderful job on the gear swift
(oops shift!). Its so effortless and slots in just perfectly (except
again for the fifth and reverse gear, wonder why i feel like this with
all other cars too!). Put it into 1st gear and the diesel engine had no
noise at all. it didnt allow me too much into first gear, guess the car
didnt like it, so i slotted into second and then came the torque. the
wonderful torque was very evident in the way the car managed stop and
go and its extremely easy to stop and go only on second gear due to
this. i revved hard and i could easily touch 60 in second gear. i
changed into third and then into fourth (again me an 800 owner, so i
had to remind myself – hey there is another gear!!) the flyover up ramp
was fast approaching and here we were, 3 people a/c on level 2 and
quite an empty road in front of me. so i revved hard and the car
marginally slugged forward. this is where i got an opinion, maruti, is
this all the show about? was carefully seeing the RPM meter this time,
in about 2 seconds i touched 1500rpm and then what happened was just
nirvana! the car flew like a bullet out of the traffic with everyone
left behind just staring blank. wonderful maruti, wonderful fiat
i already touched 80 and slotted into fifth this time. revved the gas
pedal harder, again reached 1500rpm in 2 seconds, and the car shot off
like a scalded cat. i cant believe all this happened so smoothly that
all i knew was a feeling i had as though i was on an airplane that was
on its take off speed. oh boy! its simply unbelieveable that a new age
16 valve 4 cylinder, DOHC 1.3 MJD was performing so brilliantly. after
the great high, i realised i had to handle this cannon gun more
carefully lest it fire up again and i slo
wed down a bit again onto the
ramp of the flyover after a superb u-turn. with its turning radius of
4.75, its able to be nifty to take u-turns like a merry go round for
children. when i came down the flyover at that speed, i heard a sudden
rattle of some body part – the car had done 2200km already and the
clutch was more free play – maruti, what been happening lately with
those rattles dear? looks like you havent corrected yourself.
i again encountered stop and go traffic and i tried driving this car
with 1st gear with a.c, 1st gear without a.c, 2nd gear with a.c and 2nd
gear without a.c. and though in second it hesitated a bit to move
forward, it was more than willing to do so in both gears irrespective
of the fact of the ac being on or off. a final u-turn brought me back
to bimal and the girl next to me seemed to be having goose pimples the
way i drove, with a shocked look on her face.
after the adrenalin rush, here are a few things about the car itself (this time in reverse order after first driving the car!)
– seats are comfy for four people, the fifth if bulky cant sit
properly behind, so its best to take this as a super comfy car for 4
– remote boot release and fuel cap release avaialble
– immobilizer also present in vDI
– a/c is great in both level 1 and 2, more higher not required it chills sufficiently
– side view mirror good and sturdy and can be mechanically adjusted from inside
– rear view mirror sucks big time and is too small and obstructs view
of the back side id people are in the car, i have a mirror attached to
the rear view mirror over and above it, for 375 rupees, which gives a
wide and good view of the behind.
– lots of space on dashboard and can be used practically.
– rear passenger comfort is good and my wife didnt feel thrown about even on potholed roads.
– showroom will change me to alloys (tubeless tyres on all models) at
16k for aura and will take my original rims for a marginal amount,
dunno how much
– boot space is as much as indica or santro, but less usable. suitcases
wont fit in properly maybe bags will. this is the only biggest
compromise i have to make vis-a-vis a thousand other benefits of this
car.
– digital odo, good maruti, you are up with the rest
– not much silver trims or wood trims, maruti has kept it black, maybe not that boring though
– with abs and ebd, this car is enough safety and is also like a tank
in terms of agility and handling, a tad bit lower than palio though!
– with a ground clearance of 170mm, i couldnt test if it was suffient
to soak up humps, but its atleast as good as my 800. so thats ok!
they are offering upto 1.65 for my old maruti 800 which is truly true
value. but with a damn 3 month wait period maruti will lead by monopoly
rather than by a good example! though the executive didnt know much on
new baleno, i believe it should certainly have a 1.9, 140 BHP MJD
engine from fiat and would be priced about 9 lacs, still a great value
and can be compared to corolla and the likes if quality fit and finish
are done well. trust maruti will be right onto that job. atleast they
are quite capable. honda city get ready to pack up if this happens.
your luxury excuse wont hold good for long!!
i might finally make the booking for an ozone blue swift VDi by
tomorrow if things go well. an amount of 50k and a wait of atleast 2
months. i m ready for that for this beautiful performance oriented car.
needless to say reliable service from maruti anytime anywhere. but
please mr.jagdish khattar, stop those rattles on the swift before you
lose the COTY 2008 with this car or the bigger new baleno.
OTR prices – 5.43 LDI, 5.76 VDI (no much discounts at this time)
